Elric found himself alone. He looked out at the field of ships. From the tents, laughter and booming voices washed over him in ephemeral, ghostly waves, carried on the currents of the sea breeze. Someone conjured music, and the bass line echoed out into the night.
Outside, all was still. The air remained clear, and the sky was brilliant with stars. The conjured globes of light cast the ships’ gentle shadows on the moss. To his right, his stone circle stood tall in the dark—solid, certain, his link to this place he loved.
He took a deep breath of the sea breeze. The temperature was brisk, just as he liked it. The night seemed infinitely precious, a transient bit of time out of the endless eons of eternity, on this tiny planet lost in the vastness of space. As insignificant as it might be in the course of the universe, this night would come only once, and for him it carried great value.
One had to enjoy life where one could, he thought. It was, truly, a great blessing. In his stress of discipline and control, he had failed to teach Galen that. Enjoy life. Enjoy it while he could.
Galen sat in his bedroom hunched over his screen, a fistful of hair gripped in one hand, rocking back and forth. The spells on the screen had turned to nonsense. His brain had stopped functioning several hours ago. All he could think of was that look of grave disappointment he was going to see on Elric’s face in the morning.
In the nearly one thousand years since Wierden had established the Circle, all the spells that were worth doing, and were possible, had already been done. For the last several hundred years, spells were built upon, intertwined, varied with great creativity and ingenuity. Mages altered their presentation, generating different effects. They added ever more complicated flourishes, reflecting their unique identity and power.
Yet these increasingly complex spells didn’t seem truly original. The truly original he found as he moved further and further back in the history of the techno-mages: Gali-Gali’s discovery of the unfolded shield, Maju’s leap from electron incantations to healing spells. A truly original spell would have to be on a par with those of the greats, and that task was beyond him.
He’d studied those great spells extensively. One difficulty every mage faced, though, was translating the work of other mages into his own spell language. Each mage had to discover and develop his own spell language, because a spell that worked for one mage would not work for another. Elric had explained that the tech was so intimately connected with one’s body and mind that conjuring became shaped by the individual. Since each person’s mind worked differently, mages achieved the best results in different ways. An apprentice trained to achieve clarity of thought, and his preferred method of thought formed his spell language. His chrysalis learned to respond to the spell language, and when he received his implants, this knowledge was passed to them through the old implant at the base of his skull.
Galen’s spell language was that of equations. Elric had been concerned at first as Galen’s language had developed. Most spell languages were more instinctive, less rigid, less rational. But Galen wasn’t a holistic, lateral thinker who jumped from one track to another, drawing instinctive connections. His thoughts plodded straight ahead, each leading logically and inexorably to the next. Elric had expressed fear that Galen’s language would be cumbersome and inflexible. Yet as Elric had worked with Galen on the language and seen how many spells Galen had been able to translate, his reservations had seemed to fade.
Translation was one of the most difficult tasks facing any mage. It was only after looking at many spells that Galen was able to understand how another mage’s spell language related to his, then translate those conjuries. He had managed to translate most of Wierden’s and Gali-Gali’s spells, as well as many spells of other mages. With different levels of success, he had translated spells to create illusions, to make flying platforms, to conjure defensive shields, to generate fireballs, to send messages to other mages, to control the sensors that would soon be implanted into him, to access and manipulate data internally, to access external databases, and much more.
He had memorized them all.
But since each spell language possessed its own inherent strengths and weaknesses, he found it impossible to translate some spells, such as those for healing. Others, such as the spells used to generate defensive shields, he believed he had translated correctly, yet when he cast them, the results he achieved were weak, inferior.
Galen wondered, and not for the first time, if his spell language hampered his attempt to conjure something original. As his thoughts plodded straight ahead, so did his spells, equation after orderly equation. In his language, it made no sense to simply make up a spell. An equation must be sensible in order to work; all the terms must possess established identities and properties. So how could he discover an equation that somehow reflected him, revealed him? He had been uncomfortable with the idea of revealing himself, but now that hesitance faded to insignificance beside the undeniable necessity: he could not disappoint Elric.
Galen brought up a different section of text on the screen, his translations of some of the spells of Wierden. They varied in complexity and involved many different terms, some of which were used in multiple spells, others used only once. Again it seemed to him that there could be no truly original spells, only more complicated ones. Frustrated, Galen started to reorder the spells on the screen, from simplest to most complex. As he did, he noticed that some of the spells formed a progression. A spell with two terms conjured a translucent globe. A spell with those same two terms, and one more, conjured a globe with energy inside. A spell with those same three terms, and yet another, conjured a globe with the energy given the form of light. Add another term, and it conjured a globe filled with light and heat. And on it went.
Several of Gali-Gali’s spells furthered the complexity. If he could work his way to the last spell in the progression, could he think of one that would go beyond it?
But wasn’t this just what others were doing, building ever more elaborate spells without really creating something new? He didn’t know if the other mages thought of it this way; since they didn’t formulate their spells as equations, their spells didn’t have multiple terms in them. Elric, he knew, simply visualized what he wanted to happen, and if it was within his power, it happened. One simple visualization for any spell.
Galen’s eyes went back to the top of the list, to the spell containing only two terms. Why was there no spell with only one term? No such spell existed in Wierden’s work, or, as he thought about it, in any of the mages’ conjuries he’d yet translated. Most of them had many, many terms. In fact, he couldn’t even remember another equation with only two.
Perhaps spells had to have more than one term. But why? He stared at the two terms that began the progression. If there was an initial spell in the series, a spell with only one term, which term was it?
The first of the two terms was common, used in this progression and elsewhere. Galen had come to think of it as a sort of cleanup term, necessary for everything to balance, but having negligible impact.
The second term, on the other hand, existed only within the spells of this progression. As far as he knew, at least. That seemed very odd. Surely it could have other uses.
That second term, then, seemed the defining characteristic of the progression, and the obvious choice for the first equation in it. But what would the term do when used alone?
Perhaps it would have the same effect as the second equation, conjuring a translucent sphere. If the cleanup term truly was negligible, that’s what would happen. The sphere itself, as he’d discussed it with Elric, was an odd construct, not a force field as it first had seemed. It didn’t really hold things in, or keep things out. It simply demarcated a space within which something would be done.
If removing the cleanup term did have an effect, what might it be? Perhaps the sphere wouldn’t form at all. Perhaps it would be opaque or have some other property. Or perhaps it would be deformed in some way. In any case, it wouldn’t be very impressi
ve.
Galen forced himself to take a break. He released his screen, stretched tight muscles. Outside the circle of light cast by the lamp on his worktable, his room had fallen into darkness. The walls of stacked stones had lost definition in the dim light. His rough wooden wardrobe, night table, and bed were vague, indefinite shapes.
On the wall above his worktable, four long shelves hung in shadow. Galen organized all his projects and materials there. Each item was neatly in place. Galen had found he couldn’t concentrate when items were left out on the worktable, or in any disarray. Items on the bottom shelf related to his recent research projects: microscopic probes that he had made, probes made by Elric and Circe for comparison, data crystals containing his latest translations of spells, props he had developed for a variety of minor illusions. On the second shelf he kept objects left over from previous projects: powders and potions, crystals and microchips, loose components and curious novelties. The top two shelves held older projects and other materials for which he was not sure he would find a use: his medical research, various primitive inventions, an identikit that could produce replicas of the identicards issued by twenty-three of the major governments, a keycard Alwyn had given him for his last birthday. Alwyn had promised that it would open any door.
A burst of light from outside drew his attention. He got up from the rough wood table and went to the window.
A great golden shower of light rained down over the mak. As that vanished, a long red snake climbed up the starry sky. It was the convocation’s opening-night celebration. Galen rested his palms against the cold stone wall on either side of the window.
Could he be one of them? Did he have the skill? The snake nudged a star with its nose, and the star arced downward. Then the serpent curled into a circle and took its tail in its mouth. The symbol of death in life, of renewal. It shrank smaller and smaller. Across the sky, one star after another burst open into a brilliant flower.
A dark shape appeared in his window.
He jumped back. “Fa!”
She waved vigorously and climbed in. “You are missing everything! They came down from the sky. Creatures and lights and ribbons. Pretty pictures. They are all like Honored El. They can make the dreams of light.” She turned to look out the window beside him. In the glow from outside, he studied her face. Her eyes were wide, mouth open. Her tongue was just touching her upper lip. She was enchanted. Yet like most of the Soom, she had no understanding of the true power and knowledge of the mages. She considered them wise, perhaps, and clever, but she had no idea of the discipline and study, of the efforts and works of incredible genius that allowed them to do what they did.
“Look!” she said, pointing to a braided rainbow arcing overhead.
“I have to work,” he said, and returned to his table. He stared down at his screen without seeing it. Respect for the techno-mages seemed to be lacking not only here, but everywhere.
Elizar, who traveled much more widely as Kell’s apprentice, had told him at the last convocation that on some worlds, techno-mages had been completely forgotten. On others, memory remained only in legend, as a superstition or a story told to children. Little to nothing was known of their noble history, of Wierden bringing order to the early mages; of Gali-Gali defeating the menace of the Zrad and serving at the right hand of the Empress Nare for one hundred years of peace; of Maju’s sealing of the Lau hyperspatial rift that threatened billions of lives, at the price of his own.
Techno-mages had been advisers to great leaders, and sometimes great leaders themselves. They had stood at the center of important events. They had been generals, inventors, masterminds, heroes. In those days, convocations were times when nonmages would honor mages, thanking them for service. Whole planets would celebrate and honor them.
Now they met alone, their praises unsung.
Galen had been glad to find someone who shared his concern at the last convocation, and he and Elizar had become friends as they entered chrysalis stage. Since then, they had sent messages to each other regularly, sharing a desire for the mages to take a greater part in galactic events and regain the prominence and respect they once had. If they could not hope to regain the lost scientific knowledge of the Taratimude, at least they could hope for that.
Elizar seemed to have a vision for the future of the mages, a vision that Galen hoped he would be able to bring to pass. Over the last year, though, Elizar’s messages had become more and more infrequent. Galen hadn’t heard from him at all for the past four months. Elizar was busy, Galen knew; he looked forward to talking with his friend during the convocation.
Fa stuck her head under his arm. “What are you doing?”
“I told you. I’m working.”
She climbed with damp feet up onto his lap, and then onto the table, squatting there. He moved the lamp to the other side. She had the ring on again.
“I told you not to play with that,” he said.
She was wearing it on her smallest finger, which was thick enough that the ring of Galen’s father fit perfectly. The stone was ragged and perfectly black, set in a heavy band of silver that held to the stone with sharp claws. Somehow, in her many explorations of his room, she always fixed on the ring, the one thing he wished never to face again. Galen didn’t like to see it, didn’t like to think about it.
“I won’t break it,” she said, tilting her hand back and forth. “What’s that?” She pointed at the equations on the screen.
“Work I have to do for tomorrow,” Galen said.
“Those aren’t letters.”
“No, they’re symbols that represent different elements in the spells we cast.”
“That’s a spell?”
“Yes, for me it is.” Maybe if she saw how complicated the spells were, she’d have more respect for the mages. “You see how this spell has two elements, and this one has the same two but one more.” He explained the progression to her as she turned her head back and forth over the screen.
“What comes next?” she asked, after he had led her to the most complex equation.
“I don’t know. But I think the more interesting question is, what comes first? Why is there no spell with only one term?”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.” Perhaps because it would do nothing, in which case Elric wouldn’t be terribly impressed. He saved his work on the screen and turned it off. “Shouldn’t you be in bed?”
She smiled. “Shouldn’t you be working?”
He picked her up off the table and dropped her to the floor. “Go on. Get out of here.”
She ran to the window, turned. “Gale, will you move away from here? Once you are”—she struggled with the foreign word—“initiated?”
He hadn’t really thought of that. All his efforts had been concentrated on reaching this point. He still couldn’t believe he would be a techno-mage. But even if he did become a mage, he still had three years as an initiate, during which Elric would continue to supervise him. “No, I won’t leave. Not for a while, at least. Now go home.”
She held up her hand and wriggled the fingers, flashing the ring at him. Galen held out his hand. She pulled the ring off, held it up, then dropped it into the large pocket on the front of her orange jumper. She held up her empty hands. “Nothing here. But what’s that behind your ear?” She reached up to Galen’s ear, revealed the ring in her hand. “Odd place to keep it.”
Her thick fingers made the sleight of hand difficult, but she’d gotten much better. She’d been practicing. “Better,” Galen said, taking the ring from her with a flourish to misdirect her attention. “But what’s that behind your ear?”
“What!” Fa said, turning her head from side to side as if that would help her see.
Galen reached behind her ear, producing a small, smooth rock. He kept a cache of such items in a tiny sack fastened to the underside of his table. She grabbed at it, but he closed his hand and when he opened it, the rock was gone, pinched behind two of his fingers. He closed his hand again, waved the other
over it to distract her, and then opened it to reveal the rock again on his palm. She snatched it away this time. With a cheer of triumph she ran to the window and climbed out. She gave a furious wave good-bye, then ran off.
Galen forced his clenched hand to open. On his palm sat the ring.
He had watched his mother make it, building microscopic circuitry into the silver band, creating the natural-looking black stone with layer after layer of crystals deposited in precise patterns. His parents had been powerful mages, highly respected, working at the right and left hand of a corporate president who had risen to great influence. Although his father had been his teacher, his mother had taught him that day.
The ring had been a birthday present for Galen’s father, a gift that would allow him to copy the contents of any data crystal with which it came into contact. The ring had gleamed on his father’s finger as his parents went for a birthday space cruise through the midnight lights, leaving Galen with a visiting Elric.
Elric emerged from the fire of the accident with a protective full-body shield close around him, clinging like a second skin. It gave his face a cool bluish cast. With his black robe and severe demeanor, he looked like death itself. Behind him floated two supine figures shrouded in sheets, which his shield had stretched to enclose. The shapes beneath the sheets were irregular, uneven, too small. Elric stopped before Galen and extended his hand. On it sat the ring.
Galen closed it in his hand. He often felt as if his life had begun when Elric walked out of that fire, the bodies of his parents behind him. Galen preferred not to think of them alive. He had turned his back on the memories, and had only the sense of their pressure pushing on him, an ever-weakening force he hoped would vanish forever before he had to face it.
He went to his night table, jammed the ring into its woven grass box. He didn’t want to see it, didn’t want to think about it.
Galen heard Elric close the front door. The lights in the sky had died. It was late. He didn’t know what the spell he’d discovered would do. He didn’t know if it would do anything. He didn’t want to disappoint Elric. Yet as a chrysalis-stage apprentice, he was forbidden to perform any magic without his teacher present. He wouldn’t know what the spell did until tomorrow.
Casting Shadows (The Passing of the Techno-Mages #1) Page 5